How’s the Air Quality in Tangshan?

There are reasons to be pessimistic about the air quality in Tangshan. Tangshan is a largely industrial city in Hebei province, which is the industrial heartland of China and one of the most polluted provinces. Tangshan also boasts one of China’s top 10 busiest ports.

To get some hard data on this question, Smart Air analyzed PM2.5air quality data from the Berkeley Earth Project from 2014-2018. The data revealed good news and bad news for the lungs in Tangshan.

Tangshan’s Air Pollution: The Good News

First, the good news. The air quality in Tangshan has significantly improved over the past 5 years. Each year, PM2.5 has dropped by 10% to 20%. From 2014 to 2018, Tangshan saw an overall 46% drop in PM2.5.

That also puts Tangshan much higher than major developed cities like Paris, Berlin, and London.

Is The Improvement in Tangshan’s Air Quality A Mere Stroke of Luck?

Not quite. The Chinese government has been taking big measures to reduce air pollution, particularly in northern regions like Hebei. This finding is also in line with our earlier analysis, which found that the PM2.5 northern China have improved faster than in southern China.

How Tangshan’s Air Varies Within A Year

Breaking down the data month by month shows that Tangshan’s pollution is lowest in the summer, dipping to an average of 50 micrograms. In the winter, PM2.5 soars to a heart-stopping 100 micrograms—10 times the WHO annual limit.

Smart Air is a certified B Corp committed to combating the myths big companies use to artificially inflate the price of clean air. To help people living in polluted cities like Tangshan protect themselves, Smart Air provides empirically backed, no-nonsense purifiers and masks, thereby helping to lower the cost of clean air.

Breathe safe!

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About Smart Air

Smart Air is a social enterprise based in China, India, Mongolia and the Philippines that creates simple, no-nonsense air purifiers and provides free education to combat the impacts of air pollution.
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